Tuesday, October 20, 2015

I'm almost halfway through the week and this is about typical of my usual output. Since Sunday I've been working on two shoulderstraps and a pouch and now they're all ready to head out. The pouch is a standard spaceman but the shoulderstraps are a little neat. One of them has a monogram which I honestly haven't figured out for myself. The other is destined to carry a fellow's custom case of Marvel Legendary cards. I'm sure ya'll can guess which is which. =)

I've got another shoulderstrap or two to crank out this week and I'm chatting with clients about a couple of interesting projects. In the meantime, the Missus and I have picked up our tickets to PAX South 2016 and now we just have to figure out what we want to cosplay as...

Friday, October 16, 2015

This is my third Range Card Holster and was meant to be a Christmas present for one of the MSF's instructors. We used the same basic pattern I'd initially developed and added a placard of the MSF's logo. I'd used paper to transfer the design onto the leather but, as sometimes happens with paper, it warped a bit during the transfer so some of the lettering wound up a bit of a slant. I didn't even notice until I was staining the thing but it's probably another reason to be 3D printing tapoffs rather than relying on paper transfers.

I've made a few of these so this time the challenge was in the timing. The guitar strap was meant as a birthday present and with shipping time and other orders under consideration it was going to be close. And close it was! I put the final touches on at 17:47 and had it packaged and at the post office 10 minutes later, just before the post closed for the day. So the picture might not be the best but this is at least the third paisley guitar strap on the blog so I reckon there's a few other examples.

Monday, October 12, 2015

This was another commission for my brother-in-law's motorcycle following the nicely successive toolbox earlier this summer. The idea was to add some padding to his motorcycle's seat and eventually we figured the best plan was to wrap some foam in leather and cinch it down using velcro straps. He supplied the foam (which I gather began as a yoga mat) and I coerced some latigo into a housing. That was particularly tedious since I was stitching through the foam itself. Without access to all sides of the seam I had to find the underside of the holes by touch alone. So the inner seam (which holds the top to the walls) took me about a day and a half. The outer seam (through the lid, foam, and the bottom of the walls) took 8 days to finish. Since it was a longer-term project I endulged in some Netflix whilst doing most of the stitching so put another way it took 4 action movies, the entire first season of Gothlam, and the first third of "Boneshaker" (a steampunk audiobook) to finish all that stitching.

I haven't heard back for how the seat rides just yet but it looks like it fits pretty swell.